Gozo’s Morena triumphs at the 2008 Malta Song For Europe

The song ‘Vodka’ sung by Gozo’s very own ‘Morena’ was chosen last night as the winner of the 2008 Malta Song For Europe. The voting comprised of 80 per cent televoting and 20 per cent by a panel of judges. Morena will now be Malta’s representative at the 53rd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest to be held this May in Belgrade.

Written by lyricist Gerard James Borg and composer Philip Vella, Morena’s performance of Vodka triumphed over some very strong competition from the other seven contestants. She gathered a total of 16,979 votes from the pubic and 78 votes from the judges. Claudia Faniello came second with 12,714 public votes and 68 from the judges for her performance of Carvaggio, and Ray Agius came third with 4,518 public votes and 64 from the judges for his rendition of ‘Sunrise’.

Morena hails from Sannat and was born on the 7th of March 1984, she showed at an early age her interest in singing and theatre. During her years at the secondary school she took part in several musicals, and even took part in opera choirs and had leading roles in two operettas. However her main objective was always pop music.

When she finished school, she took singing more seriously and had vocal training with soprano Georgina Gauci for 5 years. In 2001 she joined the Spectrum band as the lead vocalist, thus being exposed to a larger public. In 2005, teaming with another local singer, Teddie Zammit, she placed 3rd in the festival ‘L- Ghanja tal- Poplu’. For her performance, she received the ‘Palma tad- Deheb’, a prestigious award given every year to young and promising talents.

Later that same year, she was invited to participate in the National Orchestra’s programme – ‘National Orchestra Goes Pop’. In February ’06, she successfully participated for the first time in the Malta Song for Europe festival, where she left a very good impression. Having a versatile voice, her repertoire consists of pop, soul, swing and disco music together with quite a few ever-greens and classics.

1 Response

Glad to see that Gozo are participating in this year’s euro.Contest, as a Music and Lyric composer in the uk,my honest feedback is unfortunitly a negative responce to this year’s entry, in the first instance i couldn’t understand a clear word in projecting the song to the audience and also its very much a copy of the recent winner, it has no body and its not a tune that people can’t really relate to or say whistle a tune to. my verdict is unfortunitly scoring rather low against the other contestants and a photo copy of last year’s maltese entry. I wish Malta a good luck and very much hopeing that my comments do not reflect on this song :Vodka: still it will make a good ad.for the distillers.a few tots and we all end up with great juvenile vitality and great looks as Morena.